Landscape with Poplars

In the mid-1880s, while the Impressionists were gathering in Paris for what turned out to be their eighth and last group show, Cezanne was hundreds of miles south, back in his native Provence and mostly working alone. He wanted the opposite of a fleeting impression. Look at the tall poplars here: he built them from short strokes of green and blue laid down almost parallel, so the trees feel weighed and solid, as if no passing breeze could touch them. Their loose, natural shapes press against the tauter geometry of the little buildings at the centre. The painting stayed in private hands until it reached the National Gallery in London in 1979.